Company:
Senior Thesis
Year:
2021
Duration:
2 Months
Overview
MAYE is a speculative brand born from a desire to reconcile eco-responsibility with the fast fashion model. The project started with a personal dive into natural dyeing, exploring its limits and beauty firsthand. Rather than suppressing color - a crucial element of fashion’s emotional and symbolic power - MAYE celebrates it differently. Through a slower, more respectful process, the goal is to reintroduce meaning, care, and circularity into how we consume clothes, while keeping things simple for both the planet and the user.
Brief
As part of my senior thesis, I set out to find an actionable design-driven solution to one of fast fashion’s most toxic aspects: synthetic dyeing. The industry’s reliance on chemical dyes causes 20% of global water pollution and involves harmful substances for both humans and ecosystems. While natural dyeing offers a promising alternative, it remains unstable, labor-intensive, and difficult to scale. The challenge was to apply the ancestral know-how of plant-based dyes within a modern retail system; one that fits current consumer habits in terms of trends, convenience, price, and experience.
Proposal
In response, I created MAYE: a hybrid concept that blends local production, seasonal collections, and circular consumption, all anchored in natural dyeing. By preserving the fast fashion buying pattern (instant gratification, accessible price points, style relevance), MAYE reimagines the product lifecycle: customers choose from a curated capsule collection in (Work)shops located near dye suppliers. Once purchased, a product comes with its ID and care certificate. When the color fades, users can return it to be re-dyed and embroidered, or exchange it through a shared wardrobe system. By turning the natural imperfections of plant dyes into emotional and visual value, MAYE encourages long-term connection and pride of ownership, making sustainability intuitive, personal, and effortless.
